


I Found

by Trixie_Baggins



Series: TJ Hammond's Playlist [3]
Category: Political Animals
Genre: M/M, mentions of drug abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 04:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15623025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixie_Baggins/pseuds/Trixie_Baggins





	I Found

_ And I’ll use you as a warning sign // That if you talk enough sense then you’ll lose your mind _

He had been told since he was a young child that he would find love.  It was out there, somewhere. They said he would know when he found his love  because they would click. Everything would just make sense when they were together.

When TJ found Sean, it felt so easy.  The details got complicated, but the basics felt so simple.  Felt like they could actually make this work. TJ loved him, and had thought that Sean returned it.  It made sense that they found each other. TJ could give Sean what his wife couldn’t, and Sean gave TJ the attention and acceptance he had always craved.

It made almost too much sense.  Looking back, TJ realized he should have known better, but in that moment, he was ready to hold onto it.  He was clean. He was loved. He was in loved. LIttle did he know what the repercussions of losing everything that he thought he would have forever would be.

 

_ And I’ll use you as a focal point // So I don’t lose sight of what I want _

Sean hadn’t been good for TJ, except in one regard.  He had shown TJ what was possible. When they were together, the Hammon was himself.  He believed he was loved, and didn’t feel the need to worry about any of the history his family had.  Instead, he felt loved and accepted for who he was.

The period of time he was with Sean was the longest time TJ had been clean since he first started using.  He felt like a different person when they were together. When Sean left, it devastated him. And yet, underneath that, further down the road, when he could finally see it, there was this tiny sliver of hope.

Sean had turned him into a different person.  Had told him that he had loved him, and then left him.  But TJ would always remember what it felt like to be loved and accepted.  Realize that it was possible to be clean. The circumstances leading up to his sobriety weren’t ideal, but it was a reminder that it had happened once, and that it could happen again.

 

_ And I’ve moved farther than I thought I could // But I miss you more than I thought I would _

TJ had, against all odds, survived. He had survived the suicide attempt, the heartbreak, and the overdose.  Not only did he survive, he lived through it. Before all of it happened, he didn’t believe that he would have been able to.  He had managed to move on from Sean, trying to erase him completely from his mind. Tried to get his smell out of the apartment, and forget what his touch felt like on his skin.  Forgot what color his eyes were when he was passionate about some new legislation, or the way he smiled when TJ played the piano. 

For the most part, he had been able to, but every so often something would come up that would remind him of Sean.  Sean Reeves had shattered his heart. Sean Reeves had taken all of the good parts of TJ, and had left with them. Sean Reeves had seen the parts of TJ had he hid from everyone else.  The mess that was his life. Sean Reeves had held those parts before he left them behind. And on the cold winter nights, or when Doug and his mom were talking about politics, he still missed him.

 

_ I found love where it wasn’t supposed to be // Right in front of me // Talk some sense to me _

For as long as he could remember, TJ had avoided being involved in the political world.  His parents had raised them in it, and Dougie had been involved in it from an early age, but that life had never been for TJ.  He preferred, instead, to keep to himself and his music.

It came as a huge surprise then, when he found himself being dragged back into the political world.  When he fell for a politician. When he became one of the most fundamental pieces of a complex political plan.  Looking back, he realized it shouldn’t have surprised him. He was a Hammon. Politics was in his blood, and whether he wanted it or not, politics would always have a place in his life.

He wasn’t supposed to find love in a married man.  He wasn’t supposed to find love in someone who was a good, upstanding, midwestern, Republican congressman.  And, with all of the precautions he had taken, he was supposed to find love as far away from politics as he could.

TJ knew better.  He knew that he was playing with fire.  Sean Reeves had been connected with his parents for years.  He knew that falling for someone who was so closely involved with everything he had been trying to get away from wasn’t supposed to happen.  And yet, Sean was right there. Politics had been right in front of him for his entire life. He wouldn’t get prestige or honor from a political career like the rest of his family might, but he was going to get something out of it.

It just turned out that that something was heartbreak and blackmail.  

 

_ And I’ll use you as a makeshift gauge // Of how much to give and how much to take _

It took TJ a while to learn his lesson, but once he learned it, he would never forget it.  He learned the hard way to take whatever he could from someone, and not give them anything of himself.  

Sean had gotten all of TJ.  He had gotten the parts that the world had, the parts that he had hidden from the public, the parts he had hidden from himself.  TJ claimed he was a different person when he was with Sean, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, he was himself - the truest form of himself that existed.  Everyone else got a carefully put together facade of what TJ Hammond thought the world wanted.

Sean was a lesson that TJ would not soon forget.  TJ would hold onto what could have been as a reminder of what he might be able to some day find.  But he would always hold onto what was as a constant reminder of what happened when he let his guard down.  He would use those reminders to help him limit how much he cared, how much he gave of himself, or how much he loved.

  
  
  



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